Damage Control Over Christmas

Damage Control Over Christmas

| Fighting Fit Dundalk |

Personal Training and Bootcamp Gym

December is here; the season of warm fires, cosy pyjamas, tins of chocolate, staying inside with the feet up and let's face it, FOOD. At Fighting Fit Dundalk, we're realists. We recognise that life is for living and there are times when it's appropriate to account for every morsel you consume and times when it's helpful to simply be mindful of what's on your plate or in your glass.

We're not going to wave a magic wand but we do want to bring to bring your attention to some of the most common pitfalls over the Festive Season.

Some people might believe that there is no point in training in December because January is just around the corner. January first, the day every person in the world pledges allegiance to a gym of some kind. They will start taking care of themselves on January first! Let me let you in on a little secret. It doesn't work! If you're looking for an excuse to not exercise, you'll always find one, regardless of the time of the year. Bad habits take a long time to retrain.

Why put off until tomorrow what we can do today?

So what can we do to stay on track over the Christmas Holidays?

Lay the foundations of good habits now. You can play around with new ideas or activities while there is little pressure to be strict, supposing you're writing December off anyway!

Let's say you are going to a party over the holidays and you don't want to blow out completely but you still want to treat yourself. Keep the carbohydrates to a minimum i.e. chips, sausage rolls and sugary sweets. Focus on the protein i.e. chicken wings, ribs, turkey etc. Although they may be covered in sauces which contain sugar, the protein itself will not spike blood sugars levels and is in this case, the lesser of two evils.

Even if you can't fully commit to a diet plan, slowly introduce healthy habits into your lifestyle such as introducing protein to every meal. While the meal may be overall innutritious, you are building a keystone habit that will help you on your fitness journey.

Introduce other key factor like starting to walk everyday or practising yoga in the morning. You may not be as active as you would like to be you will be more active than you are right now and you will make the transition from inactive to active easier both mentally and physically.

If you find that your diet is very poor, full of processed carbohydrates and sugary sweets a good tip is to start your day off with a high protein and high fat breakfast with as many of your 5 a day as you can. Omelettes work great. This gives your body adequate time to burn off yesterdays sugar, at least until your next carb load.

My top tip for the holiday season is to avoid snacking mindlessly and consuming alcohol with sugary drinks. These are two of the leading causes of weight gain and should be avoided where possible.

Above all, enjoy yourself, stay in control and don't beat yourself up if you do happen to over do it, acknowledge it happened, and move on from it.